Ed Fisher, New Yorker Cartoonist, Dies at 86

Ed Fisher, whose culturally savvy cartoons, featured in The New Yorker for nearly 50 years, made wry sport of modern life, frequently matching images from history or folklore with captions in an up-to-date mode, died on April 3 in Canaan, Conn. He was 86.

His son, Mark, who confirmed the death, said Mr. Fisher had advanced dementia and had learned he had Alzheimer’s disease in 2000.

An ancient history buff and a keen observer of social behavior, Mr. Fisher created cartoons that managed to be erudite without being pretentious, requiring both a general recognition of the history of the world and a healthy appreciation of irony.

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The New Yorker published more than 700 of Ed Fisher’s cartoons, the first in 1951 and the last in 2000.

He contributed to Saturday Review, Harper’s Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Christian Science Monitor and other publications, but he was most closely associated with The New Yorker, which published more than 700 of his cartoons, the first in 1951 and the last in 2000.

His images were full and fleshed out in a 1950s style — “as though drawn in charcoal,” said Robert Mankoff, the cartoon editor of The New Yorker — often with an elaborate background but simple faces. Many of his cartoons depicted characters who were likely to be New Yorker readers, which is to say sophisticated urbanites who relish a witty lampoon of their own recognizable universe.

¶An ancient king on his throne receives the report of a bearded messenger: “The Athenians are here, Sire, with an offer to back us with ships, money, arms and men — and, of course, their usual lectures about democracy.”

¶One robed Egyptian to another, sitting glumly at a makeshift real estate office in front of a windowed pyramid: “If the occupancy sign-up rate keeps dropping, we may be forced to remodel the whole damn thing for just one luxury-class tenant.”

In an interview last week, Mr. Mankoff summed up Mr. Fisher’s sensibility. “To get the captions you had to have a real liberal arts education,” he said. “They were educated cartoons for an educated audience.” He paused, then added, “They had a timely timelessness.”

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CreditEd Fisher/The New Yorker

Edwin Zalmon Fisher was born in the Bronx on Oct. 24, 1926. His father, Lee, was a chiropractor; his mother, Betty, was a semiprofessional choral singer. He sold his first cartoons while he was at Antioch College in Ohio, from which he graduated, though his college career was interrupted by World War II. He served in the Pacific in the Army Air Forces.

Mr. Fisher returned to New York after college with a wife — the former Ann Sharp — and settled in Upper Manhattan, where he lived for decades. “He had the same phone number for 60 years,” his son said. At first he tried to find work at graphic design studios, telling potential bosses that he’d sold cartoons to The New Yorker, after which, according to family lore, he wouldn’t be hired because, he was told, he was overqualified.

Collections of Mr. Fisher’s work include “Ed Fisher’s First Folio,” “Ed Fisher’s Domesday Book” and “Maestro, Please,” a 1992 volume of cartoons about musicians. He was the author of a satiric 1960 novel set in ancient Rome, “Wine, Women and Woad,” and until he lost the ability to write, his son said, he had been working on a historical novel that he had begun in childhood.

Mark Fisher said that years after his parents’ marriage ended in divorce, they remarried when his mother was ill with cancer. She died in 2000. In addition to his son, Mr. Fisher is survived by a daughter, Nancy Rupert; a sister, Carol Romano; and two granddaughters.

Mr. Fisher’s final cartoon for The New Yorker was indicative of his gift for tapping into enduring themes. In it, two robed priests are walking among the empty pews of an imposing church. One says to the other, “It seems to me that ordination of women might brighten the place up a bit.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 24 of the New York edition with the headline: Ed Fisher, 86, New Yorker Cartoonist, Dies. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe